Elijah Vance couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such a raging hard-on when there wasn’t a naked woman in the vicinity. Watching Iris’s pale pink lips close around that tender fruit had brought his cock surging to life faster than the last tongue that had stroked it . . . which obviously had been far too fucking long ago, if this was the situation.

Tearing himself away from the sight of her, he tossed the leafy strawberry top in the trash and rubbed his palms on his jeans, looking anywhere but at her lest the problem grow more prominent. His zipper was already a dull agony pressing into his rigid length.

“I probably should get them to bed,” he said, hearing the rasp in his own words. She opened her mouth, surely about to offer to do it herself, but he waved her to silence. “I got it. Eat all this you want and drink a lot of water. Then go get some more rest. I’m sure you need it. I’ll crash on the couch in case you need anything.”

“I’m sure I’ll be okay now.”

“I’ll be there anyway.”

“All right,” she said softly, and he caught himself looking into her sky-blue eyes again despite himself. As he watched, the pupils seemed to expand, to draw him in deeper. He thought of a black hole, those dense voids floating in space where gravity was so strong even light had no hope of escape. If he let this go on . . . Fuck.

He wanted this woman. Wanted her with a greed he hadn’t felt since Heidi. 

He knew all too well where that had gotten him, didn’t he?

But Iris wasn’t Heidi—he would stake his life on that much. In the short time he’d known her, she’d already exhibited more caring for the people around her than Heidi had in the entirety of their relationship. 

“I do need to make sure they talk to their mom,” she said, a tentative note in her voice as if she was nervous about bringing it up. He had to give her a break on that. Try to conduct himself a bit better.

When in the fuck had he ever been worried about conduct? “Sure,” he forced himself to say, instead of the bitter comment that was churning within, about not giving a damn if Heidi got to talk to the boys or not. Iris was right, it wasn’t about her. It wasn’t about him either. It was only about them. “You can go do that.”

She rounded up Dylan and Seger and took them into her bedroom, closing the door for privacy. The moment it clicked shut, Eli limped to the other bedroom and the bathroom beyond, wincing from the bite of his jeans against his erection. Unless he wanted to get waylaid by a raging case of blue balls, he would have to take matters into his own hands. Cold showers never fucking worked for him, and with Iris’s hot little body sleeping only on the other side of a wall from him, there would be no hope of rest unless he handled this situation.

As he stepped under the hot spray and closed the shower door, he thought he was a fine fucking example of a rock star . . . having to rub one out in the shower to keep from nailing the nanny. A failed marriage and kids had turned him soft.

Well, he thought, groaning as his soapy fist closed around his straining cock, only in some ways.

Iris finally reclaimed her phone from Seger and shooed the boys from the bedroom when Heidi told her she wanted to have a private word. Dreading what she was about to hear, she closed the door after they departed and settled on the bed again, holding the phone up so she could see Heidi’s face. Her boss had a pinched look about her, but then she hadn’t seemed very happy throughout the entire call.

“You don’t look so good,” Heidi observed, giving a toss of her luxurious, salon-fresh tresses. She, of course, looked . . . well, fresh from the salon, as always.

Gee, thanks. “I’m still not one hundred percent,” Iris said. “It was pretty brutal.”

“The boys seem to be over it.”

“Yeah. Nothing keeps them down for long.” She tried to keep her tone light, but Heidi’s eyes kept boring into hers, and it was making her squirm. Or maybe it was guilt. She had, after all, just shared a weirdly intimate moment with the woman’s ex-husband barely fifteen minutes ago. Not to mention that dream earlier.

“Is Elijah there?”

“He’s, um . . . Is he where? Here in the suite? Yes, he’s in the other bedroom. He was worried I was dying, I guess, so he stayed close in case I needed anything.” She laughed it off, but the sound came out brittle.

“So you two are thick as thieves now, or what?”

“Um, no, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Iris, I didn’t send you on the road to make friends with him.”

Iris hoped Eli wasn’t anywhere outside where he could hear this conversation. “I’m not. I know what I’m here for, but it’s really been a rough couple of days. We had to face it as a team.”

“You’re not on his team. You’re on mine.”

“Exactly what game are we playing, then?” She surprised herself when she said it, and Heidi’s eyebrows shot up. “Look, I’m on the kids’ team, Heidi. Dylan and Seger are the only team I’m concerned with. I’m taking the best care of them I know how. I can’t keep getting caught up in this drama. It’s driving me nuts.”

“Driving you nuts? Is that what you said to me?”

The two of them had had their share of disagreements. As the employee, Iris had always yielded. But this . . . she couldn’t abide these kids being in a tug-of-war between their parents. “I don’t mean to upset you. This has been stressful, to say the least, and then getting sick on top of it was the worst. But we’re all on the mend, and once we’re back on the road, things will go back to normal. I’m sure of it.”

Heidi didn’t look convinced, a tightness around her lips. “Eli needs to get his own suite. All we need is the gossip sites and Ruin fansites to catch wind of you two shacking up. They follow his every step. Those people are relentless, Iris. You don’t know what we dealt with, and trust me, you don’t want to find out.”

“I’ll tell him.” She wouldn’t, because Eli was going to do what he damn well pleased, which would certainly not include anything Heidi Vance ordered him to do. And what Heidi didn’t know wouldn’t piss her off. She lived thinking the paps were right outside her window at all times, and maybe she had a point. Maybe she planned to grill her own kids about it later. But they would have to take their chances. It wasn’t Iris’s place to tell the man to do anything.

“Also, I did not care for the way you spoke to me just now. See that it doesn’t happen again.”

Iris didn’t know what was wrong with her. Ordinarily she would jump to apologize, smooth things over, make Heidi happy. And she knew she would do so now as well—it could mean her job if she didn’t. But it took a moment to get her seething emotions under control. She forced the sweetest smile she could muster, hoping it looked genuine. “It won’t.”

“You’ll get a few days off when the boys go to their grandparents’ house. I think you need them. You can de-stress then. I’ll get your plane ticket home.”

“Sounds good.”

Five or so minutes had elapsed after they’d hung up when Eli tapped on her door. “Come in.” It opened, and he peeked in.

“I’m crashing on the sofa bed.”

“Are the boys all tucked in?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I doubt I’ll be able to sleep, since I was out all day.”

He lingered for a moment, then finally stepped in and shut the door. He wore black pajama pants and no shirt, making her mouth run dry again. In her current dehydrated state, that couldn’t be good for her. His black hair was wet from his shower and, even from across the room, the clean scent of his soap reached her. He only stood there, looking at her.

“What?” she finally ventured, quivering inside.

“You aren’t going to tell me?”

Dread began to unfurl in her belly. “Tell you what?”

“To get my own suite.”

“I’m sorry you heard that,” she said quietly. “But no, I’m not. It isn’t my place to tell you what to do. Anything she has to say to you, she can tell you herself.”

He crossed his densely inked arms over his chest, leaning back against the door. The weakness in her belly had nothing to do with the remnants of her virus. “What do you want me to do, Iris?”

What was he asking her? Something about his tone, deep and dark and intimate, made her think he was offering more than simply sleeping outside her bedroom. “I . . . think I like knowing you’re here. If I need anything, I mean.”

“Of course,” he agreed quickly, lightening somewhat. Iris pulled in a breath, finding the air thick and warm despite the air conditioning. “So I’ll be out here, then.”

She nodded because she didn’t dare put words out there between them. She wasn’t sure what those words would be, what might take her over and speak her needs into reality. He opened the door, but before he left, he turned to her again. “Don’t let her get to you.”

Yeah, if he’d heard the thing about the suite, then he’d heard Heidi’s remarks at the end. Iris picked at an errant thread on the bedspread, heart thudding dully. “I hate having conflict with her.”

“I know. I was the same way for a few years. Then you come to realize that all you can have with her is conflict.”

Something about those words chilled her, making her think of her own future in Heidi’s employ. Before she could think of anything to say, he slipped outside. Iris collapsed across her bed, exhausted.

He was there if she needed anything. That was what he’d said.

He was there if she needed him was what he’d meant.

It was going to be a long night.

––––––––

SHE DIDN’T KNOW JUST how long it was going to be.

Tossing and turning, she stared at the ceiling, at her phone, at nothing in particular. She turned the TV on low, hoping to get interested in something that would take her mind off the man outside her door, but that was futile. Twice, she thought she heard the doorknob turn slightly, but the sound must’ve been her imagination. Or wishful thinking.

Is that what she wished, truly? For that knob to turn, that door to open? To throw away all her hard work and dedication to these kids on a tumble through the sheets with their father? That’s what he was offering, she knew, but she couldn’t sleep with him. Beyond any moral work-related dilemmas, casual sex had never and would never be a part of her life. Flirting might be fun, but that was all it could ever be with him, and they had the rest of this tour to get through. She had to keep her head.

She did for precisely five minutes, then flopped over onto her back with a heavy sigh. Was he asleep? Awake and fighting himself, thinking about her, uncomfortable on the sofa bed? He should be the one in the opulent bedroom, sprawled in the middle of this king-sized mattress. He was the celebrity. Yet here she was.

Of course, he could be sleeping soundly, not having given her another single thought. It was probably ridiculous of her to think otherwise.

But it was the same vicious cycle she was all too familiar with. When she had to think of sex—because Eli had her thinking of nothing else—she had to think of Jacob.

Her former fiancé. He’d been handsome with his closely clipped brown hair and clear blue eyes, and he hadn’t failed to exhibit the charms she’d always thought were important. Opening doors for her, pulling her chair out in restaurants. Holding her hand. Telling her she was pretty. Telling her she was the one. He’d been everything she wanted in a potential mate, but her upbringing had been instilled deep, and her upbringing dictated that she wait until marriage to have sex. 

It seemed trite and silly to her now, but at the time, she’d held strongly to her beliefs. Until Jacob wore her down and finally broke her.

His kisses and caresses had awakened lukewarm desires, yes, and she’d looked forward to letting him have more someday. It had felt good to be wanted. Sometimes it had taken everything within her to stop him, but stop him she had. At first, he’d accepted with good grace, sometimes apologizing for letting himself get out of hand. After a few months, his impatience had set in. No sooner had she put her hand on top of his wandering one than his jaw would set, his blue eyes would turn icy, and he would sit back and seethe in silence, even as he denied there was a problem when she dared to ask.

Looking back, she knew something else had been holding her back. More than once, she’d told herself to just give in already, but when the moments presented themselves, she balked.

But then he asked her to marry him, and she’d been overjoyed. Everything would work out. They would have their wedding and a fabulous honeymoon and the deed would be done. The engagement ring he put on her finger, though, was only the beginning of her nightmare. When she kept not letting him into her bed, he bypassed impatience and went straight to anger. She was called a cocktease more than once. They were going to spend the rest of their lives together anyway, he said, so what the hell difference did it make if they did it now or later? She needed to show him she was going to be a good wife to him, show him they were compatible, or he wasn’t sure he could go through with the wedding.

Stupid with horror at the thought of being jilted mere weeks before having everything she’d ever wanted, the night he said that, she let him have his way. And cried the entire time he was inside her, hurting her, but Iris, you just made me wait so long, I can’t help it, it’ll get better . . .

Or so he said. She frankly didn’t care if it would get better or not; he made her first time such a terrible, painful experience that it wasn’t one she was inclined to repeat. And his smug satisfaction afterward pissed her off to think of even now. She remembered wondering what could possibly get better about what he’d done to her. It had been . . . degrading.

After she rejected his next few advances too, it wasn’t long before she caught him doing the same thing to another woman, someone he worked with, who seemed to be enjoying it far more than Iris had. To this day, she thought he’d set it up because he didn’t have the guts to tell her to her face that he wanted out.

It had shattered her, but what hurt worse than anything was that she’d given him what she’d been told all her life should only belong to her husband. He’d taken it and left her feeling stripped, vulnerable, worthless. Like something was horribly wrong with her that she hadn’t liked it, this thing that humans had been chasing since time immemorial, this act that propagated our very species, that sold movies, magazines, books—everything—all over the world.

Eventually she’d gotten over that too. It had taken time, and a lot of anger at herself and even her parents for their sheltering ways. Sara had been a big help in that regard, assuring her over and over that the right person would cherish her regardless. That her worth wasn’t tied up in sex, and that it may seem like a big deal to her now, but once she found the one for her, it would be as natural as breathing. Her parents had poisoned her soul with their outdated ideals, and it had taken forever to suck out the venom.

Still, she’d avoided romantic entanglements ever since, because even if her worth had nothing to do with sex, she hadn’t enjoyed it. At all. Everything that had felt good at first—the kissing, the touching—only turned into something that still made her want to squeeze her legs together and cringe every time she thought about it. But sex was a part of romance, of relationships. It was simple as that. She would never have her happy ending without it.

Sara had tried to help her there, too, shoving her in the car one day and driving her to a sex shop, something she would never have done on her own. Mortified, Iris had humored her friend and bought herself a small vibrator just to get out of there.

Well, she had to admit, the vibrator was okay. But Sara had also suggested she watch some porn, and maybe that had been a mistake. Iris had a hard time imagining someone she loved doing that stuff to her. Sara had only insisted she needed to watch the right porn, but at that point, Iris had had enough. Maybe she would die a spinster. She didn’t much care anymore, except that she really would like children.

Something else that required sex. Yay.

Elijah standing in front of her earlier tonight, his body warmth invading hers, had made her consider rethinking her stance more than anything else since Jacob had left. He had made her want again. He made her wonder if it really could be different with a different man. The right man.

She’d had a fiancé who was the “nice” guy, publicly attentive, charming in all the ways she’d wanted, and he’d betrayed her body and her heart.

Lying in the next room was a man who wanted her, who was crude and intense and without morals, one who’d likely had women all over the world, and he was promising pleasures from a simple look, a touch. She could still feel his fingers around hers right now.

Iris hadn’t brought her vibrator along. It remained safely in the bottom drawer of her nightstand back home, because she’d thought it would be the last thing she’d need on this trip. Right now, it was all she could think about since Eli had left her feeling restless and empty and unfulfilled.

Unable to resist any longer, she let her fingers creep into her panties, giving a silent gasp at the wetness she found. Maybe if she did this, she could think of something else, she would be able to fall asleep.

At the center of her confusion, and her guilt, was her need. It blinded her right now. She let her fingers explore freely and imagined they were his. Those beautiful hands of his, long-fingered and graceful. This was safe; no one could intrude upon her fantasies. No one ever had to know. She didn’t have to feel guilty here, only imagining him touching her. She wasn’t bad.

She would only be bad if she let him do it for real.

God, she wanted to be bad.